A Bridge in Time
Page 59
When they shook hands, she realised with a pang that they’d never even kissed each other. Come to that, she’d never kissed any man. ‘I wonder if I ever will?’ she thought as she hurried back to her waiting carriage. ‘Oh, where’s Tim Maquire?’ mourned the little devil of a voice inside her.
It was a glorious evening when she reached the river. The setting sun was striking beautiful colours off the bridge; she had not known that stone could shine with so many shades of red.
‘Stop, stop, let me off here,’ she called to the driver, for she had to take one last walk along the top of the miracle she’d created. It soared above her as magnificent as a dream. Even the thick buttress that Maquire had built around the cracked pier did not annoy her so much any longer, though she still thought it looked like a bandage on the finger of an elegant hand.
‘I know, I know,’ she murmured as if she were talking to him. ‘It would have fallen down if you hadn’t.’
There was a line of wooden-edged steps cut into the embankment by the roadside and she climbed up, holding her skirt high so that it would not be marked by the raw earth. The bridge stretched in front of her like a road to infinity, metal rails glittering in the light of the dying day. She walked very slowly to the middle and then stood staring round. Being up so high made the world look very different. Darkness was creeping in and there were midnight-coloured patches of shadow everywhere. She wondered if Tibbie’s Roman soldiers were out walking already.
A rising wind whipped her skirt around her legs and made her hold on to her hat. She shivered a little and turned to go but when she looked back along the way she had come, she realised with a tremor of shock that someone was walking towards her. It was a man on his own, his silhouette black and broad-shouldered against the last of the light. She could not see his face.
She stood very still as he came nearer. Her heart was hammering in her throat as Tim Maquire stepped close to her. Without speaking, he gently took off her hat, laying it on the rails at their feet. Then he cupped a hand behind her head and tilted her face up towards his. She stared with wide eyes into his. ‘They’re blue – I never noticed that before,’ she registered in wonder. She could neither speak nor move, for she felt as if her whole body was turning into liquid. Tim kissed her and for a moment she wondered if she was asleep and dreaming. His lips gently brushed against hers and his beard prickled against her skin. She put up a hand to stop him, but only half-heartedly. He grasped the hand and held it tight as he kissed her again, more insistently this time.
As he held the girl in his arms, something woke and expanded like a flower inside his heart. He was a man who yearned to have someone to look after. He’d taken care of Christopher Wylie; he’d tried to take care of Hannah and now, more than anything in the world, he wanted to take care of this little waif-like thing with the yellow eyes and funny freckles. His hand cupped her head gently and as he kissed her she was suddenly not timid any more. She pressed against him, opened her lips and kissed him back.
Time stood still. Neither of them knew if it was seconds, minutes or hours before he stopped kissing her and said in a voice of wonder, ‘My God, I didn’t think this would ever happen to me again. I love you. You can be one of the most annoying women I’ve ever met but I love you very much. I didn’t mean this to happen. I saw you up here and came to fetch you down to the celebration dinner. Then it hit me.’
‘I’m glad you did,’ she whispered.
‘Glad I did what?’
‘I’m glad you kissed me.’
‘So am I. Very glad. But we’ll have to hurry if we’re going to that dinner.’
‘But I’ve not been invited,’ she protested.
‘I have. I’ve got the card in my pocket and I’m taking you with me,’ he said, grabbing her hand and picking up her hat in one swoop as he started to run along the bridge. Laughing, she ran with him.
* * *
The directors of the Edinburgh and South of Scotland Railway were holding their celebration dinner at the flower-bedecked Red Lion Hotel overlooking Maddiston Square. The big dining room on the first floor had three long windows with wrought-iron balconies from which flags and bunting were hanging.
Tim cantered the sweating pony of his hired gig on to the half circle of cobbles in front of the hotel door and turned to look at the exhilarated Emma Jane by his side. Gently he smoothed her hair back from her glowing face, picked up her hat which he’d put at his feet for the ride to Maddiston and carefully set it on her head. Then he adjusted it, leaned back a little to see the effect, adjusted it again, stuck her hatpin in the back so that it was skewered to her thick rope of hair and announced, ‘You look beautiful. I love that hat.’
He jumped down, held out a hand and helped her alight from the gig like a princess. Arm in arm they entered the Hotel and climbed the stairs to the first-floor landing where a black-coated waiter stood on guard at the door of the dining room. He tried to stop them, hissing, ‘It’s an all-male dinner, sir.’
‘This lady,’ said Tim grandly, ‘is the guest of honour. Please stand aside.’ The waiter did as he was told.
Emma Jane surprised herself by feeling totally unafraid of a dining room full of men. The strength of Tim’s arm gave her confidence. A long top table was set against the top wall facing three other tables which stretched to the end of the room. There was bunting hanging from the ceiling, bottles on the tables, and the air was blue with tobacco smoke. When the interruption occurred, Sir Geoffrey was on his feet making another speech. He stopped in mid-sentence and stared at Maquire striding up the middle of the floor with the Wylie girl on his arm.
Jopp was sitting at the top table, three places down from Sir Geoffrey and next to Colonel Anstruther, still in his Bath chair. Tim walked up and put a hand on Jopp’s shoulder. ‘Get up. You’re here on false pretences,’ he said.
‘I’m not,’ spluttered Jopp, attempting to hold on to his seat, but Tim lifted him up by the back of his collar as if he was a toy. Then, very courteously, he showed Emma Jane into Jopp’s chair. All the guests watched in astonished silence as she sat down with a sweep of her skirts.
Colonel Anstruther, who had a taste for pretty women, turned and smiled at her. ‘Welcome, young lady. You deserve to be here. Can I offer you some claret?’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
By this time Tim had taken his own place at the bottom of one of the other tables beside the man who made the bricks and the chief mason. His unwavering gaze sustained Emma Jane and made her glow with love. There was not a man present – except for Miller and Jopp – who did not warm to her.
It was time for the toasts. Colonel Anstruther spoke up before anyone else had the chance to interrupt. ‘I’m afraid that my infirmity doesn’t allow me to stand, gentlemen, but I’d like to propose a toast to the young lady beside me. Without her we wouldn’t have that beautiful bridge to grace our line. I’ve seen her on site working with the men and I was amazed at what she was doing. Yet here she is as lovely as a rose, and three miles down the line is our bridge. Well done, Miss Wylie!’ He raised his glass to her in a storm of clapping.
‘Speech, speech,’ called someone from the end of the room and with calm aplomb Emma Jane stood up. A hush fell as she began.
‘I’m not going to say much, and when I’ve finished I’ll go away and leave you gentlemen to the serious business of toasting the bridge, but I’d like you to know how much I’ve enjoyed building it. There were times when I was in despair, times when I thought it would never be completed…’ she eyed Miller as she said this, ‘…but with the help of people like young Robbie Rutherford, who is not here tonight, and my right-hand man Tim Maquire who is, the job was done. Thank you, Tim. You are absolutely invaluable. I couldn’t have done it without you.’ As she raised her glass towards him, he jumped from his chair to walk up to the top of the room and stand opposite her.
‘I’ll take you home now,’ he said huskily, and then turned to face the gathering. ‘Gentlemen, if any of y
ou ever want another bridge or even a railway built, remember us. We’re forming a company called Wylie and Maquire, and we’ll build anything you want, any place you want it.’
Then he held out a hand to Emma Jane who stood up and walked around the table to take it. Once they were outside the dining room she looked up at him and said with a laugh, ‘I think we should call it Maquire and Maquire, don’t you?’
He laughed and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I was hoping you’d want more than a business alliance. Yes, let’s make it legal, Miss Wylie.’
A great giggle rose up in her throat and she leaned on his arm beaming as she told him, ‘Oh Tim, I do want to be there when you ask my mother for my hand. I’m longing to see the effect it’ll have on dear Aunt Louisa!’
Next in A Bridge in Time:
Wild Heritage
Caught between the past and the future, can friendship survive in changing times?
Find out more
First published in the United Kingdom in 1994 by Orion
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Elisabeth McNeill, 1994
The moral right of Elisabeth McNeill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788636384
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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